sheela‐na‐gig

sheela‐na‐gig, a carved female figure, generally emaciated and with distorted features, standing or sitting so as to display the genitalia. Such figures date from the 13th to the 17th centuries, mainly from areas of significant Anglo‐Norman settlement. The term, first documented in the 17th century, may derive from Irish Síle na gCíoch (‘the hag of the breasts’) or Síle‐ina‐Giob (‘the old woman squatting’). Sheela‐na‐gigs appear to have originated as symbolic representations, paralleled in Romanesque and Gothic iconography throughout Europe, of the sin of lust. Later they came to be popularly regarded, especially in Gaelic or Gaelicized areas, as protective icons, and 17th‐century Catholic ecclesiastical regulations called for their removal.